


Mirror Image

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grif dies. Simmons lives. Someone has to tell Kai.</p><p>If only Simmons could find her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Image

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RenaRoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenaRoo/gifts).



> For this prompt by Renaroo: Grif didn't make it out of the war, Simmons puts it on himself to find the sister no one else believed was alive to fulfill Grif's last wish.

     After Project Freelancer crashed, Hargrove had moved all the living Sim troopers to random settlements across the galaxy.

    Simmons knew this. After they won the war, he’d begged Church to let him look at the man’s files. They’d been thick things, pages on pages of technical nonsense with only a few pieces of useful information in between, but he’d poured over them anyway, only taking a couple hours a day to take a break. By the time he had finished, he’d written up a list of two dozen settlements, each more than a week away from each other.

    From there, it’d been simple. No one ever expected him to steal a plane, so doing so took little effort besides jacking the keys and taking off. It was an adjustment to go from flight simulators to actual flying, but he adapted well, the scrapes on his ship all the result of minor damage. By the time his friends realized he was gone, he was in the wind.

    Simmons hoped to see them again. Apologize for leaving without them in the middle of the night. But first he had a job to do.

    He was going to find Kaikaina Grif.

***

    After Grif heard the news, that Kai was dead, he stayed in bed for over a day.

    It wasn’t expected. When he first heard the news, he’d been rather stoic about the whole thing, keeping it together until he could retire to his quarters. It was only the next day, when Grif didn't show up for drills, that Simmons realized that stoicism had never been Grif’s style.

    He was the one to show up. To walk into Grif’s room unannounced, bundle him up in his arms, and pressed kisses to his hair. To let Grif kiss him back, take off his shirt, to make love in the darkness. To not say anything until Grif started speaking later.

     “She’s not dead,” he said, head resting of Simmon’s chest. Simmons had his hand in his hair, the other grabbing Grif’s free hand tightly. “She can’t be. She’s gotta be out there somewhere.”

     Simmons wanted to disagree. To save Grif the pain of hope. He held the urge back. “Okay.”

     “I’m gonna find her,” Grif said, voice rising in volume. “After this stupid war, I’m gonna find her, and bring her home, and yell at her for joining the army in the first place. I’m gonna find her.”

    Simmons thought about that possibility. If they lived through this war intact only for Grif to fly off into the sunset on a potential hopeless quest. Without him. It just wasn’t acceptable. But he wasn’t about to tell Grif to give up his sister for dead for Simmons’ sake. So he settled on something else.

    “No,” Simmons said. Grif opened his mouth to protest and Simmons looked him straight in the eye. Hoped Grif couldn’t see the doubt of his sister’s faith in them. “We’ll find her.”

    It wasn’t an official promise. But it was one Simmons was going to keep.

***

     The first planet Simmons reached was a bust.

     So was the second.

    And the third.

    By the time he makes it to the 5th settlement, knee glitching from not being properly oiled, he began to wonder if this was he could even fulfill.

***

    Back before that fight, back before Grif hit the ground and stopped breathing, Grif has tried to convince Simmons to stay at base.

      He did it with subtlety, which was enough to tell Simmons how much it mattered. Tugging him by his elbow, Grif had pulled him into an adjacent room right before they left. The yellow armored soldier had looked serious then, serious than Simmons had ever seen him, and when he spoke the tone matched.

     “Simmons. Is there any chance I can talk you to sit this one out?”

    Simmons had just looked at him like he’d grown two heads. “Sit this out? What are you talking about? I can’t just stay here.”

He couldn’t. They both knew it. Simmons had a squad to run, a mission to fulfill; staying back would mean risking the entire operation. Grif seemed to deflate a little, his hair falling into his face over his eyes. Simmons would usually make fun of him for it, it made him look like an angsty teenager, but this time he held back. Since the war started, they’d been doing a lot of that.

     “I know,” Grif said. “I just-” He gritted his teeth. “You heard Church. They might have stuff that can mess with electronics. Like shut it off. And if you haven’t noticed, you’re like fifty percent wires, metalhead.”

    That thought settled in. Grif was right; leaving was a danger. If Church turned out to be correct, Simmons could collapse in the middle of the fight in total cardiac arrest. Back in Blood Gulch, back before the army when he was just Richard, the mere thought of dying would have sent him running. Now, running wasn’t something he could bare thinking about.

    “I can’t leave,” Simmons settled on after a moment. “They need me.” He looked up at Grif. Grif took one hand off the helmet he’d tucked under his shoulder and lifted it up so it was an inch from Simmons face. After a second of hesitation, he cupped Simmons chin.

    “I can’t lose you.” His voice was gentle. “You can’t die on me, asshole.”

    Simmons smiled. It wouldn’t be a Grif love speech if it didn’t contain an insult. He placed his hands over Grif’s, letting himself take in this moment of sentimental nonsense.

    “You won’t.”

***

    When he reached the tenth planet, it had been six months since he set out on this journey.

     He entered the public buildings one by one, a picture of Kai and Dexter in his pocket. It was taken back when they were in Blood Gulch, back when they were just kids, and Simmons tried not to look at it often. He pulled it out to every official, asking if any of them had seen the girl on the left.

     Most of them said no. But one quirked his lips down, brown crinkling and said “you know-”

    With those two words, Simmons heart stopped.

    He got the address easy enough; the man was rather helpful once he showed his military I.D. By the time Simmons got ready to head out to the edge of the settlement, his heart was already racing with excitement.

    “What do you need to find this girl for?” The man asked. The excitement in Simmons’ heart faded, replaced by a fateful ache. He tried not to think of a warm laugh in his ears and a hand on his shoulder.

    “Her brother died. Someone has to tell her.” And with that, he was gone.

***

    Grif died in seconds.

    Simmons didn’t even see it coming. Even with all of those robotic enhancements, all those extra gears lying in his torso, he didn’t see Locus until it was too late. Until a bullet pushed its way through Grif’s chest and out of his back, Until he collapsed, choking on blood.

    Simmons still had nightmares about it. He’d be standing on the other edge of the clearing, knocking out a man with his elbow and a shot would ring out. He’d turn, watch Grif collapse. He’d run as fast as he could, even though his leg ached with phantom pains, falling to his knees by Grif’s side even though he didn’t have any cover to afford doing so. He’d pull of Grif’s helmet, fumbling on the clasps. And Grif would be dead. He’d always be dead.

    Simmons didn’t wake up from those dreams screaming. Instead his human eye would prop open, wide and unseeing, his mouth would form to whisper “no.” His stomach would clench, his ears would ring. He’d become the perfect replica of Grif lying on that yellow grass.

    He didn’t sleep much anymore.

***

    He knocked on the door once before it opened.

    The woman who answered the house was not Kaikaina Grif.

     She looked similar. Simmons could tell how the man was mistaken; the two women had the same build, the same dark skin, the same wave to their hair. But close up he could spot the differences. She was missing the trademark Grif family dimples. Her eyes weren’t quite the same shade of brown. Her voice was more of a growl than the high pitched joy of Kai.

     “Can I help you? She asked. Simmons closed his eyes and shook his head. He reached into his pocket for photo he’d been using all this time. Tried not to think about the photo in his other pocket, the one with him and Grif on a hill back in their Blood Gulch days. Happy. Alive.

    He held the photo up. Ignored the phantom feeling of lips near his ear. And in a voice that echoed back to him as the voice of Dexter Grif-

    “I’m just looking for someone.”


End file.
